Saya Otonashi
This article is about the Blood+ character. For other characters of the same name in the Blood: The Last Vampire franchise, see Saya (Blood: The Last Vampire) or Saya Kisaragi. is a fictional character and the central protagonist of the Blood+ anime and manga series. Fictional character biography Saya was "born" in 1833 from one of two cocoon-like objects taken from the belly of a chiropteran mummy, the other cocoon containing her sister Diva . Both are kept at the "Zoo" by Joel Goldschmidt, where Saya is treated as his daughter and Diva, who is left nameless, is confined to a tower. Saya does not learn about Diva's existence until 1863, when she hears Diva singing and finds her locked in a room at the top of the tower. Saya then names her Diva. In 1870, Amshel purchases a twelve-year-old boy named Hagi from his parents to become Saya's companion and friend, though she later falls in love with him and vise versa. During a birthday party for Joel in 1883, Saya releases Diva so that she can sing for Joel; Diva, however, slaughters everyone in the Goldschmidt house while Saya and Hagi are out looking for Joel's favorite flower. Realizing that Diva is a monster, Saya spends her periods of activity hunting Diva to try to kill her, her chevaliers, and any chiropterans they have created. During a flashback dream, she is hunting Diva after the presumed death of Grigori after the Russian Revolution. It turns out the girl Sonia is Grigori. Grigori is crystallized after Diva escaping with Amshel. After that Saya goes into her deep sleep (30 year hibernation). Saya is a skilled athlete and fights using a special katana with an edge she can touch with her thumb while gripping it so as to draw blood, and grooves specially designed to spread her blood through its entire blade. Once loaded with her blood, it is a deadly weapon against Diva and any chiropteran created from Diva's blood. After Saya's first blade is broken, David gives her a new one that has a red crystal at the base of its blade, symbolizing her membership in the Shield] organization. The crystal is a piece of her adoptive father's body, which crystallized when she killed him with her own blood in order to spare him the fate of turning into a chiropteran. In 2005, when Blood+ begins, Saya is a high school girl living in Okinawa who was adopted a year ago by George Miyagusuku after waking from her hibernation cycle with no memory of her identity or past. Though she appears to be a normal teenager, any injuries she sustains heal almost instantly and she must receive regular blood transfusions to remain healthy. When a chiropteran attacks her school, she finds her life turned upside down. She is reunited with her chevalier Haji, though she doesn't remember him, and learns that her blood can kill the chiropterans. She is approached by David, from the Red Shield, who tells her it is her duty to kill chiropterans because she is the only one who can. Neither David nor Haji will tell her the truth about her past, telling her she must remember on her own. Though at first Saya is reluctant to fight and afraid of who she might be, she slowly comes to accept her duty and regain her memories. After Riku's death, Saya disappears for a year, along with Haji. When she returns, she has longer hair and a harder, darker appearance. Now accepting of her chiropteran biology, she accepts the necessity of feeding on Haji's blood to live and be strong enough to fight. However, she has a less cheerful personality, is more morose and less talkative than she used to be. Moses and Lulu both remark that she has lost hope. Believing the fight with Diva is hers alone, and not wanting to have to grieve for any more lost comrades, she avoids cooperating with Kai or the Red Shield. Saya's friends repeatedly work to help her understand that this fight is not for her to bear by herself, and that she is never alone. As the battle with Diva continues, Saya's next hibernation period draws nearer, she starts having sudden bouts of fainting spells, and her regeneration ability slows. At the Metropolitan Opera House, Saya confronts Diva in a final duel, which ends as they simultaneously pierce each other with their blood-coated swords. Saya is unaffected by Diva's blood, because it lost its potency when she became pregnant. Diva, however, begins to crystallize, and Saya cries for her and tries to hold her shattering pieces together. With Diva dead, Saya turns to kill the babies and herself fearing that if they lived, they would be forced to become military weapons. Kai pleads with her to live, promising to protect her and the babies and make anyone afraid of her understand. Hagi disobeys Saya for the only time in his life, taking her sword and confessing he has loved her from the moment they met. Saya tearfully admits she wishes to live as she kisses Haji. A month later, back in Okinawa, Saya finally goes into her next thirty-year hibernation period. At her request, Kai puts her back in the Miyagusuku family crypt to sleep, and he watches over her, and Diva's children. Several years later, a pink rose with Haji's blue ribbon is left at the crypt. Hagi is alive and he is watching from afar, waiting patiently for his love to awaken after her thirty year sleep. Relationships In the anime, Saya is the object of romantic interest for Kai, Hagi, and Solomon Goldsmith. Of the three, only Solomon shows his interest openly, effectively abandoning Diva and his brothers in order to spend his life with Saya. Although she appreciates his affections, Saya does not feel the same way and gently rejects his advances. Both Kai and Hagi spend most of the series suppressing their true feelings for Saya, stating that they only wish to protect and support her. Eventually, Kai suggests that when their war with Diva is finished that they both return to Okinawa to run their father's restaurant together, and offers her a key to the restaurant. It is never explicitly stated whether Kai intended their relationship to become romantic and he may only have meant that they could run the restaurant as siblings. In the series finale, Hagi admits that Saya is the one who taught him how to live and that she was the only person that ever made him happy. He regrets not being able to do the same, by protecting her from the suffering caused by her conflict with Diva. After Saya enters her next 30-year hibernation period, both Kai and Hagi look after her while she sleeps. The anime is unclear as to whether Saya ever truly has romantic feelings for either Kai or Hagi and she never states a preference for either of them in the series. However, it is most likely that Hagi is the one best suited to be in a relationship with Saya as, like her, he cannot die of old age and can simply wait for her during her long period of hibernation. Manga In the manga (showing part of Saya's past from the 19th-century era), Saya doesn't care much for Hagi, telling him to find her one of every type of rose. When he cannot find the blue rose she requests, she tells him to leave. She visits Diva often, telling her of what goes on in her life. When she tells of Haji, Diva convinces her that Haji is just the same as her other companions. Saya intends to drive Haji away again, until she finds that all the roses he has picked her now had no thorns. After this, Haji and Saya grow closer and she teaches him how to play the cello. As he grows older, Saya is shown to be flustered after merely touching his hand. At one point Saya gets a cut and runs away when Haji sees it healing so quickly, believing he will think her a monster. She stays locked in her room for days, unwilling to come out even to take her 'medicine'. Unexpectedly Haji crashes through her window, with her medicine, and tells her she is beautiful and gives her the hair comb he had been waiting so long to give her. They share their first kiss. Their romantic relationship results in Saya no longer visiting Diva very often. When Saya lets Diva out of the tower, Diva pierces Haji's chest with her hand, leaving him to die for "being a nuisance". Upon discovering him, Saya gives him her blood and turns him into a chevalier. References Category:Blood: The Last Vampire characters Category:Anime and manga characters with superhuman strength Category:Anime and manga characters who can move at superhuman speeds Category:Anime and manga characters with accelerated healing Category:Child characters in anime and manga Category:Fictional Japanese people Category:Fictional French people Category:Fictional adoptees Category:Fictional orphans Category:Fictional twins Category:Fictional vampire hunters Category:Fictional socialites Category:Fictional queens Category:Fictional centenarians Category:Fictional mass murderers Category:Fictional Vietnam War veterans